Ebook PDF Developing Management Skills 9th Edition

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Skills 9th Edition

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B r i e f ta B l e o f c o n t e n t s
Preface xix
Introduction 1
PArt I Personal skIlls 35

1 Developing self-awareness 37
2 Managing stress and Well-Being 85
3 solving Problems analytically and Creatively 133
PArt II InterPersonal skIlls 187

4 Building relationships by Communicating supportively 189
5 Gaining Power and Influence 227
6 Motivating others 263
7 Managing Conflict 305
PArt III GrouP skIlls 363

8 empowering and engaging others 365
9 Building effective teams and teamwork 401
10 leading Positive Change 443
PArt IV sPeCIfIC CoMMunICatIon skIlls 487

Module a Making oral and Written Presentations 489
Module B Conducting Interviews 517
Module C Conducting Meetings 551
appendix I Glossary 571
appendix II references 581
Index 609
v
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contents
Preface xix
iNtroductioN 1
the critical role of management skills 3

The Importance of Competent Managers 4
The Skills of Effective Managers 5
What Are Management Skills? 6
Improving Management Skills 7
An Approach to Skill Development 7
Leadership and Management 9
Contents of the Book 11
Organization of the Book 12
Diversity and Individual Differences 13
Summary 14
suPPlementarY material 15
Diagnostic Survey and Exercises 15
Personal Assessment of Management Skills (PAMS) 15
What Does It Take to Be an Effective Manager? 19
SSS Software In-Basket Exercise 21
scoring keY anD comParison Data 32

Personal Assessment of Management Skills 32
Scoring Key 32
Comparison Data 33
What Does It Take to Be an Effective Manager? 33
SSS Software In-Basket Exercise 33
PArt I Personal skIlls 35
1 dEvElopiNg SElf-AwArENESS 37
skill assessment 38
Diagnostic Surveys for Developing Self-Awareness 38
Developing Self-Awareness 38
The Defining Issues Test 38
vii
Cognitive Style Indicator 42
Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale 42
Core Self-Evaluation Scale (CSES) 43
skill learning 44
Key Dimensions of Self-Awareness 44
The Enigma of Self-Awareness 45
The Sensitive Line 45
Understanding and Appreciating Individual Differences 47
Important Areas of Self-Awareness 47
Emotional Intelligence 49
Values 51
Ethical Decision Making 57
Cognitive Style 59
Attitudes Toward Change 61
Core Self-Evaluation 63
summarY 65
skill analYsis 67
Cases Involving Self-Awareness 67
Communist Prison Camp 67
Computerized Exam 69
Decision Dilemmas 70
skill Practice 72
Exercises for Improving Self-Awareness Through Self-Disclosure 72
Through the Looking Glass 72
Diagnosing Managerial Characteristics 73
An Exercise for Identifying Aspects of Personal Culture: A Learning Plan
and Autobiography 75
skill aPPlication 77
Activities for Developing Self-Awareness 77
Suggested Assignments 77
Application Plan and Evaluation 78
scoring keYs anD comParison Data 79

The Defining Issues Test 79
Escaped Prisoner 79
The Doctor’s Dilemma 79
The Newspaper 80
Cognitive Style Indicator 80
Scoring Key 80
Comparison Data 81
Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale 81
Scoring Key 81
Comparison Data 82
Core Self-Evaluation Scale 82
Scoring Key 82
Comparison Data 83
viii Contents
2 MANAgiNg StrESS ANd wEll-BEiNg 85
skill assessment 86
Diagnostic Surveys for Managing Stress and Well-Being 86
Managing Stress and Well-Being 86
Social Readjustment Rating Scale 86
Sources of Personal Stress 89
Flourishing Scale 90
skill learning 90
Managing Stress and Fostering Well-Being 90
Major Elements of Stress 91
Coping with Stress 92
Managing Stressors 94
Eliminating Stressors 95
Eliminating Time Stressors Through Time Management 95
Eliminating Encounter Stressors Through Community, Contribution, and Emotional Intelligence 100
Eliminating Situational Stressors Through Work Redesign 103
Eliminating Anticipatory Stressors Through Prioritizing, Goal Setting, and Small Wins 104
Developing Resiliency and Well-Being 106
Life Balance 106
Psychological Resiliency 107
Temporary Stress-Reduction Techniques 112
summarY 113
skill analYsis 114

Cases Involving Stress Management 114
The Turn of the Tide 114
The Case of the Missing Time 117
skill Practice 121

Exercises for Long-Term and Short-Run Stress Management and Well-Being 121
The Small-Wins Strategy 121
Life-Balance Analysis 123
Deep Relaxation 125
Monitoring and Managing Time 126
Generalized Reciprocity 127

Activities for Managing Stress 128

Comparison Data 130
Sources of Personal Stress 131
Flourishing Scale 131
Comparison Data 131
Contents ix
3 SolviNg proBlEMS ANAlyticAlly ANd crEAtivEly 133
skill assessment 134

Diagnostic Surveys for Creative Problem Solving 134
Problem Solving, Creativity, and Innovation 134
Solving Problems Analytically and Creatively 134
How Creative Are You? © 134
Innovative Attitude Scale 136
Creative Style Assessment 137
skill learning 139

Problem Solving, Creativity, and Innovation 139
Steps in Analytical Problem Solving 139
Defining the Problem 140
Generating Alternatives 141
Evaluating Alternatives 141
Implementing the Solution 142
Limitations of the Analytical Problem-Solving Model 142
Impediments to Creative Problem Solving 143
Multiple Approaches to Creativity 143
Conceptual Blocks 148
Percy Spencer’s Magnetron 148
Spence Silver’s Glue 149
The Four Types of Conceptual Blocks 149
Review of Conceptual Blocks 157
Conceptual Blockbusting 157
Stages in Creative Thought 157
Methods for Improving Problem Definition 158
Ways to Generate More Alternatives 162
International Caveats 165
Hints for Applying Problem-Solving Techniques 166
Fostering Creativity in Others 166
Management Principles 166
summarY 170
skill analYsis 172

Cases Involving Problem Solving 172
Coke versus Pepsi 172
Creativity at Apple 173
skill Practice 175

Exercises for Applying Conceptual Blockbusting 175
Individual Assignment—Analytical Problem Solving (10 minutes) 175
Team Assignment—Creative Problem Solving (20 minutes) 176
Moving Up in the Rankings 177
Keith Dunn and McGuffey’s Restaurant 178
Creative Problem-Solving Practice 182

Activities for Solving Problems Creatively 182
x Contents
How Creative Are You?© 184
Scoring Key 184
Comparison Data 185
Innovative Attitude Scale 185
Comparison Data 185
Creative Style Assessment 186
Scoring Key 186
Comparison Data 186
PArt II InterPersonal skIlls 187
4 BuildiNg rElAtioNShipS By coMMuNicAtiNg SupportivEly 189

Diagnostic Surveys for Supportive Communication 190
skill learning 190

Building Positive Interpersonal Relationships 190
The Importance of Effective Communication 191
The Focus on Accuracy 192
What is Supportive Communication? 193
Coaching and Counseling 195
Coaching and Counseling Issues 195
Defensiveness and Disconfirmation 197
Principles of Supportive Communication 197
Supportive Communication Is Based on Congruence, Not Incongruence 197
Supportive Communication Is Descriptive, Not Evaluative 198
Supportive Communication Is Problem-Oriented, Not Person-Oriented 201
Supportive Communication Validates Rather Than Invalidates Individuals 202
Supportive Communication Is Specific (Useful), Not Global (Nonuseful) 204
Supportive Communication is Conjunctive, Not Disjunctive 205
Supportive Communication Is Owned, Not Disowned 205
Supportive Communication Requires Supportive Listening, Not One-Way
Message Delivery 206
The Personal Management Interview 211
summarY 214
skill analYsis 216

Cases Involving Building Positive Relationships 216
Find Somebody Else 216
Rejected Plans 217
skill Practice 219

Exercises for Diagnosing Communication Problems and Fostering Understanding 219
United Chemical Company 219
Byron vs. Thomas 221
Active Listening Exercise 223
Contents xi
Activities For Communicating Supportively 224
5 gAiNiNg powEr ANd iNfluENcE 227
skill learning 228

Building a Strong Power Base and Using Influence Wisely 228
Is Power A Four-Letter Word? 229
Abuse of Power 230
Strategies for Gaining Organizational Power 232
Sources of Personal Power 232
Sources of Positional Power 237
Transforming Power into Influence 241
Influence Strategies: The Three Rs 241
The Pros and Cons of Each Strategy 244
Acting Assertively: Neutralizing Influence Attempts 247
skill analYsis 253

Case Involving Power and Influence 253
Dynica Software Solutions 253
skill Practice 254

Exercise for Gaining Power 254
Repairing Power Failures in Management Circuits 254
Exercise for Using Influence Effectively 255
Ann Lyman’s Proposal 256
Exercises for Neutralizing Unwanted Influence Attempts 256
Cindy’s Fast Foods 257
9:00 to 7:30 258

Activities for Gaining Power and Influence 259
6 MotivAtiNg othErS 263
skill learning 264

Increasing Motivation and Performance 264
Diagnosing Work Performance Problems 265
Enhancing Individuals’ Abilities 266
Fostering a Motivating Work Environment 268
xii Contents
Elements of an Effective Motivation Program 269
Establish Clear Performance Expectations 270
Remove Obstacles to Performance 272
Reinforce Performance-Enhancing Behavior 273
Provide Salient Rewards 281
Be Fair and Equitable 284
Provide Timely Rewards and Accurate Feedback 284
summarY 286
skill analYsis 289

Case Involving Motivation Problems 289
Electro Logic 289
skill Practice 295

Exercises for Diagnosing Work Performance Problems 295
Joe Chaney 298
Work Performance Assessment 298
Exercise for Reshaping Unacceptable Behaviors 299
Shaheen Matombo 299
Andre Tate, Manager 299
Shaheen Matombo, Staff Member 300

Activities for Motivating Others 301
SKILL PRACTICE Exercise for Reshaping Unacceptable Behaviors 303
7 MANAgiNg coNflict 305
skill learning 306

Interpersonal Conflict Management 306
Mixed Feelings about Conflict 307
Diagnosing the Type of Interpersonal Conflict 308
Conflict Focus 309
Conflict Source 310
Selecting the Appropriate Conflict Management Approach 312
Choosing Among the Five Strategies 315
Personal Preferences 316
Situational Factors 317
Resolving Interpersonal Confrontations Using the Collaborative Approach 319
A General Framework for Collaborative Problem Solving 319
The Four Phases of Collaborative Problem Solving 320
summarY 329
skill analYsis 332

Case Involving Interpersonal Conflict 332
Educational Pension Investments 332
Contents xiii
skill Practice 336
Exercise for Diagnosing Sources of Conflict 336
SSS Software Management Problems 336
Exercises for Selecting an Appropriate Conflict Management Strategy 345
Bradley’s Barn 345
Avocado Computers 346
Phelps, Inc. 346
Exercises for Resolving Interpersonal Disputes 347
Alisa Moffatt 347
Can Larry Fit In? 351
Meeting at Hartford Manufacturing Company 352

Activities for Improving Managing Conflict Skills 358
SKILL PRACTICE Exercises for Resolving Interpersonal Disputes 361
PArt III GrouP skIlls 363
8 EMpowEriNg ANd ENgAgiNg othErS 365
skill learning 366

Empowering and Engaging Others 366
The Meaning of Empowerment 367
Dimensions of Empowerment 368
Self-Efficacy 368
Self-Determination 369
Personal Consequence 370
Meaning 370
Trust 371
Review of Empowerment Dimensions 371
How to Develop Empowerment 372
A Clear Goal 372
Fostering Personal Mastery Experiences 373
Modeling 374
Providing Support 374
Emotional Arousal 374
Providing Information 375
Providing Resources 376
Connecting to Outcomes 376
Creating Confidence 377
Review of Empowerment Principles 378
Inhibitors to Empowerment 380
Attitudes about Subordinates 380
Personal Insecurities 380
Need For Control 380
Overcoming Inhibitors 381
xiv Contents
Fostering Engagement 381
Deciding When to Engage Others 382
Deciding Whom to Engage 383
Deciding How to Engage Others 384
Review Of Engagement Principles 386
summarY 388
skill analYsis 389

Cases Involving Empowerment and Engagement 389
Minding the Store 389
Changing the Portfolio 390
skill Practice 391

Exercises for Empowerment 391
Executive Development Associates 391
Empowering Ourselves 395
Deciding to Engage Others 396

Activities for Empowerment and Engagement 397
9 BuildiNg EffEctivE tEAMS ANd tEAMwork 401

Diagnostic Surveys for Building Effective Teams 402
Team Development Behaviors 402
Building Effective Teams and Teamwork 402
Diagnosing The Need For Team Building 402
skill learning 403

The Advantages of Teams 403
An Example of an Effective Team 407
Team Development 408
The Forming Stage 408
The Norming Stage 409
The Storming Stage 411
The Performing Stage 414
Leading Teams 417
Developing Credibility 417
Establish Smart Goals and Everest Goals 419
Team Membership 422
Advantageous Roles 422
Unproductive Roles 425
Providing Feedback 426
summarY 427
Contents xv
skill analYsis 428
Cases Involving Building Effective Teams 428
The Tallahassee Democrat’s ELITE Team 428
The Cash Register Incident 431
skill Practice 432

Exercises in Building Effective Teams 432
Leadership Roles in Teams 432
Team Diagnosis and Team Development Exercise 433
Winning the War on Talent 435
Team Performance Exercise 437

Activities for Building Effective Teams 439

Diagnosing the Need for Team Building 441
Comparison Data 441
Leadership Roles in Teams (Examples of Correct Answers) 441
10 lEAdiNg poSitivE chANgE 443

Diagnostic Surveys for Leading Positive Change 444
Leading Positive Change 444
Reflected Best-Self Feedback 444
skill learning 446

Ubiquitous and Escalating Change 447
The Need for Frameworks 447
A Framework for Leading Positive Change 449
Establishing A Climate of Positivity 452
Creating Readiness for Change 457
Articulating a Vision of Abundance 460
Generating Commitment to the Vision 463
Fostering Sustainability 466
summarY 469
skill analYsis 471

Cases Involving Leading Positive Change 471
Corporate Vision Statements 471
Jim Mallozzi: Implementing Positive Change in Prudential Real Estate and Relocation 477
skill Practice 481

Exercises in Leading Positive Change 481
Reflected Best-Self Portrait 481
Positive Organizational Diagnosis Exercise 482
A Positive Change Agenda 483
xvi Contents
Activities for Leading Positive Change 483

Reflected Best-Self Feedback™ Exercise 485
PArt IV sPeCIfIC CoMMunICatIon skIlls 487
Module A MAkiNg orAl ANd writtEN prESENtAtioNS 489
skill learning 490

Making Oral and Written Presentations 490
Essential Elements of Effective Presentations 491
Formulate a Specific Strategy 491
Develop a Clear Structure 493
Support Your Points 495
Use an Enhancing Style 497
Style in Oral Communication 498
Style in Written Communication 501
Supplement your Presentation by Responding to Questions and Challenges 503
skill Practice 507

Exercises for Making Effective Oral and Written Presentations 507
Speaking as a Leader 507
Quality Circles at Battle Creek Foods 508
Observer’s Feedback form 515
Module B coNductiNg iNtErviEwS 517
skill learning 518

Planning and Conducting Interviews 518
Planning the Interview 519
Conducting the Interview 523
Specific Types of Organizational Interviews 527
Information-Gathering Interviews 527
Employment-Selection Interviews 527
Performance-Appraisal Interviews 528
skill Practice 532

Exercises for Conducting Special-Purpose Interviews 532
Evaluating the New Employee-Orientation Program 532
Performance-Appraisal Interview with Chris Jakobsen 535
Employment-Selection Interview at Smith Farley Insurance 542
Observer’s Feedback form 549
Contents xvii
Module c coNductiNg MEEtiNgS 551
skill learning 552

Conducting Effective Meetings: A Short Guide for Meeting Managers and Meeting Participants 552
The Five P s of Effective Meetings 552
Suggestions for Group Members 557
skill Practice 560

Exercises for Conducting Meetings 560
Preparing and Conducting a Team Meeting at SSS Software 560
Role Diagnosis 560
Meeting Evaluation Worksheet 561
SSS Software In-Basket Memos, E-Mails, Faxes, and Voice Mails 562
aPPenDIx I Glossary 571
aPPenDIx II referenCes 581
InDex 609
xviii Contents
P r e fa c e
new in this edition
• New to every Chapter Personal Inventory Assessments (P.I.A)
• Chapter 2 now includes a major focus not only on managing stress but also on
how to enhance and encourage well-being.
• Chapter 8 replaces the discussion on “delegation” with a focus on “engagement.”
• Research continues to appear on factors that predict managerial effectiveness
and skillful performance. Therefore, we have updated references, studies, and
examples to enhance each chapter’s currency.
• In an environment filled with instantaneous technology, sound bites of data, and
short attention spans, we have been motivated to shorten each of the book’s
chapters substantially. With these reductions, however, we have maintained the
empirical evidence and the foundational models and frameworks.
• In each chapter, references to video examples found in Pearson’s
tm
MyManagementLab are noted.
Why Focus on Management Skill Development?

Given that a “skill development” course requires more time and effort than a course us-
ing the traditional lecture/discussion format, we are sometimes asked this question by
students, especially those who have relatively little work experience.
Reason #1: It focuses attention on what effective managers

actually “do.”
In an influential article, Henry Mintzberg (1975) argued that management education had
almost nothing to say about what managers actually do from day to day. He further faulted
management textbooks for introducing students to the leading theories about manage-
ment while ignoring what is known about effective management practice. Sympathetic to
Mintzberg’s critique, we set out to identify the defining competencies of effective managers.
Although no two management positions are exactly the same, the research summa-
rized in the Introduction highlights ten personal, interpersonal, and group skills that form
the core of effective management practice. Each chapter addresses one of these skills.
Personal Skills
1. Developing Self-Awareness
2. Managing Personal Stress and Well-Being
3. Solving Problems Analytically and Creatively
xix
Interpersonal Skills
4. Building relationships by Communicating Supportively
5. Gaining Power and Influence
6. Motivating Others
7. Managing Conflict
Group Skills
8. Empowering and Engaging Others
9. Building Effective teams and teamwork
10. Leading Positive Change
Consistent with our focus on promoting effective management practice, the ma-
terial in these chapters provides guidance for a variety of contemporary management
challenges, including: “How can I help others accept new goals, new ideas, new ap-
proaches?” “How can I invigorate those who feel outdated and left behind?” “How do I
help the ‘survivors’ of a downsizing pick up the pieces and move on?” “How do I help
people with very different agendas and philosophies work together, especially during peri-
ods of high stress and uncertainty?”
Anyone tempted to dismissively argue that the answers to these questions are “com-
mon sense” would do well to recall Will Rogers’ pithy observation: “Common sense ain’t
common.” In addition, the research reported in the Introduction suggests that, in many
cases, managers’ “common sense” isn’t “good sense.”
The premise of this book and associated course is that the key to effective management
practice is practicing what effective managers—those with “good sense”—do consistently.
Reason #2: It is consistent with proven principles of effective

teaching and learning.
A seasoned university professor advised a young colleague, “If your students aren’t learn-
ing, you’re not teaching—you’re just talking!” Here’s what some authorities on higher
education have to say about how effective teachers foster learning:
“All genuine learning is active, not passive. It is a process of discovery in which the
student is the main agent, not the teacher.” (Adler, 1982)
“Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just by sitting in a
class listening to teachers, memorizing pre-packaged assignments, and spilling out
answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past
experiences, apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of
themselves.” (Chickering & Gamson, 1987)
In their classic book, Bonwell and Elson (1991) list seven defining characteristics of active
learning:
1. Students are involved in more than passive listening.
2. Students are engaged in activities (e.g., reading, discussing, writing).
3. There is less emphasis placed on information transmission and greater
emphasis placed on developing student skills.
4. There is greater emphasis placed on the exploration of attitudes and values.
5. Student motivation is increased, especially in adult learners.
6. Students receive immediate feedback from their instructor and peers.
7. Students are involved in higher order thinking (analysis, synthesis,
evaluation).
xx PrefaCe
Our goals in writing this book were to bridge the academic realm of theory and research
and the organizational realm of effective practice and to help students consistently trans-
late proven principles from both realms into personal practice. To accomplish these goals,
we formulated a five-step “active” learning model, described in the Introduction. Based
on the positive feedback we’ve received from teachers and students, we can state with
confidence that the form of active learning pioneered in this book is a proven pedagogy for
management skill mastery.
MyManaGeMentlaB suGGesteD aCtIvItIes

For the 9th edition we the authors are excited that Pearson’s MyManagementLab has
been integrated fully into the text. These new features are outlined below. Making assess-
ment activities available on line for students to complete before coming to class will allow
you the professor more discussion time during the class to review areas that students are
having difficulty in comprehending.
Watch It
Recommends a video clip that can be assigned to students for outside classroom viewing
or that can be watched in the classroom. The video corresponds to the chapter material
and is accompanied by multiple choice questions that re-enforce student’s comprehension
of the chapter content.
Personal Inventory Assessments (PIA)

Students learn better when they can connect what they are learning to their personal
experience. PIA (Personal Inventory Assessments) is a collection of online exercises designed
to promote self-reflection and engagement in students, enhancing their ability to connect
with concepts taught in principles of management, organizational behavior, and human
resource management classes. Assessments are assignable by instructors who can then track
students’ completions. Student results include a written explanation along with a graphic
display that shows how their results compare to the class as a whole. Instructors will also
have access to this graphic representation of results to promote classroom discussion.
DetaIleD ChaPter By ChaPter ChanGes

Based on suggestions from reviewers, instructors, and students, we have made a number
of changes in the ninth edition of Developing Management Skills.
• Chapter 2 now includes a major focus not only on managing stress—usually
observed to be a negative influence on individuals—but it focuses on how to
enhance and encourage well-being. Stress can be turned to good outcomes if
managed effectively, and this 9th edition adopts this positive approach. It high-
lights ways to flourish and enhance well-being even in the presence of stressful
circumstances.
• Chapter 8 replaces the discussion on “delegation” with a focus on “engagement.”
The theme of employee engagement has become a very important topic in modern
organizations as they attempt to enhance their performance and help their em-
ployees flourish. That is, employee engagement has become a very hot topic. This
chapter provides a framework that helps you engage employees effectively.
• In an environment filled with instantaneous technology, sound bites of data, and
short attention spans, we have been motivated to shorten each of the book’s
PrefaCe xxi
chapters substantially. With these reductions, however, we have maintained the
empirical evidence and the foundational models and frameworks that distinguish
this book from others on the market. We have maintained the scientific and
scholarly basis for the prescriptions in each of the chapters because, to be effec-
tive managers, students need more substance than found in traditional airport
bookstore advice.
• Research continues to appear on factors that predict managerial effectiveness and
skillful performance. Therefore, we have updated references, studies, and exam-
ples to enhance each chapter’s currency. Whereas many of the classic studies and
foundational investigations remain in the text, you will find many up-dated studies
and examples through the book. This is also the case with exercises, cases, and
assessment instruments.
• In each chapter, references to video examples found in Pearson’s
MyManagementLab are noted. You will want to use these video supplements to
illustrate certain concepts and practices discussed in the chapters. They provide
real examples of management skill practices in the workplace.
tips for Getting the Most out of this Course

Whether you are an undergraduate or MBA student, or an experienced manager, based on
our years of teaching management skills, here are some suggestions for making this course
a personally meaningful learning experience:
• Read the Introduction carefully. Although this is not a typical management text-
book, it is important that you understand its distinctive learner-focused features,
especially the five-step learning model: Skill Assessment, Skill Learning, Skill
Analysis, Skill Practice, and Skill Application. You’ll also find informative research
on how much managers’ actions impact individual and organizational perfor-
mance and the characteristics of effective managers.
• Thoughtfully complete the Skill Assessment surveys for each chapter. These diag-
nostic tools are designed to help you identify which specific aspects of each skill
topic most warrant your personal attention.
• Carefully study the Behavioral Guidelines and the summary model at the conclu-
sion of the Skill Learning section of each chapter before reading that section. These
written and graphical summaries are designed to bridge the research-informed
description of each topic with the skill development activities that follow. To help
you internalize research-informed “good sense,” be sure to use the Behavioral
Guidelines as your frame of reference when reading and discussing Skill Analysis
cases and participating in Skill Practice and Skill Application exercises.
• Be sure to complete the Skill Application exercises in each chapter. Management
skill mastery requires out-of-class skill practice. How to do this is pretty straightfor-
ward if you are currently working in an organization, regardless of whether you
are an experienced manager or a new, part-time employee. Whether or not you
are currently employed, we encourage you to seek out skill practice opportunities
in all aspects of your life, including working in assigned teams in this and other
courses, planning social events for a campus or community organization, counsel-
ing a troubled sibling or friend, managing end-of-semester deadlines, or handling a
difficult issue with a boy/girlfriend or spouse. The sooner you begin—and the more
you persist in—practicing what you learn in this course, the more you’ll be able to
count on these skills as “automatic responses” when you need them as a manager.
xxii PrefaCe
InstruCtor resourCes
At the Instructor Resource Center, www.pearsonhighered.com/irc, instructors can easily
register to gain access to a variety of instructor resources available with this text in down-
loadable format. If assistance is needed, our dedicated technical support team is ready to
help with the media supplements that accompany this text. Visit http://247.pearsoned.
com for answers to frequently asked questions and toll-free user support phone numbers.
The following supplements are available with this text:
• Instructor’s Resource Manual
• Test Bank
• TestGen® Computerized Test Bank
• PowerPoint Presentation
2015 QualItatIve BusIness vIDeo lIBrary

Additional videos illustrating the most important subject topics are available in
MyManagementLab, under the Instructor Resources: Business Today.
CoursesMart textBooks onlIne

CourseSmart eTextbooks were developed for students looking to save money on required
or recommended textbooks. Students simply select their eText by title or author and
purchase immediate access to the content for the duration of the course using any major
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numbers, take notes online, print out reading assignments that incorporate lecture notes,
and bookmark important passages for later review. For more information or to purchase a
CourseSmart eTextbook, visit www.coursesmart.com.
acknowledgments
In addition to the informal feedback we have received from colleagues around the world,
we would especially like to thank the following people who have formally reviewed ma-
terial and provided valuable feedback, vital to the revision of this and previous editions:
Richard Allan, University of Tennessee– Joseph V. DePalma, Farleigh Dickerson

Chattanooga University
Joseph S Anderson, Northern Arizona Todd Dewett, Wright State University
University Andrew J. Dubrin, Rochester Institute
Forrest F. Aven, University of Houston of Technology
Lloyd Baird, Boston University Steven Edelson, Temple University
Bud Baker, Wright State University Crissie M. Frye, Eastern Michigan
John D. Bigelow, Boise State University University
Ralph R. Braithwaite, University of Norma Givens, Fort Valley State University
Hartford Barbara A. Gorski, St. Thomas University
Julia Britt, California State University Sara Grant, New York University
Tim Bothell, Brigham Young University David Hampton, San Diego State
David Cherrington, Brigham Young University
University Jason Harris-Boundy. San Francisco
John Collins, Syracuse University State University
Kerri Crowne, Temple University Stanley Harris, Auburn University
PrefaCe xxiii
Richard E. Hunt, Rockhurst College J. Randolph New, University of
Daniel F. Jennings, Baylor University Richmond
Avis L. Johnson, University of Akron Jon L. Pierce, University of Minnesota–
Jay T. Knippen, University of South Duluth
Florida Lyman Porter, University of California–
Roland Kushner, Lafayette College Irvine
Roy J. Lewicki, Ohio State University Lyle F. Schoenfeldt, Appalachian State
Michael Lombardo, Center for Creative University
Leadership Jacop P. Siegel, University of Toronto
Charles C. Manz, University of Charles Smith, Hofstra University
Massachusetts–Amherst Noel M. Tichy, University of Michigan
Ralph F. Mullin, Central Missouri State Wanda V. Trenner, Ferris State
University University
Thomas J. Naughton, Wayne State Ulya Tsolmon, Brigham Young University
University Kenneth M. York, Oakland University
We especially thank our collaborators who adapted the book for the European and
Australian markets as well as those who translated Developing Management Skills into
Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Dutch.
We are grateful for the assistance of many dedicated associates who have helped us
continually upgrade and enhance Developing Management Skills. We wish to acknowledge
our colleague, Jeffrey Thompson, Director of the Romney Institute of Public Management,
Brigham Young University. Jeff has been a valuable collaborator on our recent revisions and
has become a major part of the authoring team.
We would also like to thank Kris Ellis-Levy, Sarah Holle, Rebecca Groves, Meghan
DeMaio, and Judy Leale of Pearson Education. In addition, we’d like to express our gratitude
to Kristin Jobe of Integra-Chicago for her expert assistance with this edition, as well as Erikson
Daniel Conkling, Ivy Tech Community College/Northeast and Linda Hoffman, Ivy Tech
Community College/Fort Wayne for their contributions to the MyLab assessment content.
Finally, and most importantly, we express appreciation to our families for their ongoing
patience and support, which is reflected in their willingness to share their time with this com-
peting “labor of love”—and to forgive our own gaps between common sense and common
practice.
David A. Whetten
Kim S. Cameron
xxiv PrefaCe
ManageMent ConCepts
■ The Critical Role of Management Skills
IntroductIon
■ The Importance of Competent Managers
■ The Skills of Effective Managers
■ What Are Management Skills?
■ Improving Management Skills
■ An Approach to Skill Development
■ Leadership and Management
■ Contents of the Book
■ Organization of the Book
■ Diversity and Individual Differences
■ Summary
suppleMentary
The Critical
Material Role of
■
■
Personal Assessment of Management Skills (PAMS)
What Does It Take to Be an Effective Manager?
SSS Software In-Basket Exercise
Management
Skills
Scoring Key and
coMpariSon Data
Learning
Objectives
1. Introduce the Importance
of management SkIllS
2. IdentIfy eSSentIal
management SkIllS
3. explaIn a learnIng
model for developIng
management SkIllS
4. revIew the contentS of
the Book
1
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Introduction
The Critical Role of Management Skills

No one doubts that the twenty-first century will continue to be characterized by chaotic,
transformational, rapid-fire change. In fact, almost no sane person is willing to predict
what the world will be like 50, 20, or even 10 years from now. Change is just too rapid
and ubiquitous. Three quarters of the content on the web was not available three years
ago. The development of “nanobombs” has caused some people to predict that personal
computers and desktop monitors will land on the scrap heap of obsolescence within 20
years. The new computers will be a product of etchings on molecules leading to personal-
ized data processors injected into the bloodstream, implanted in eyeglasses, or included
in wristwatches.
Warren Bennis, a colleague of ours, half-jokingly predicted that the factory of the future
would have only two employees, a person and a dog. The person would be there to feed
the dog. The dog would be there to keep the person from touching the equipment! Almost
no one would argue with the claim that “permanent white water” best characterizes our
current environment. Almost everything is in flux, from our technology and methods of
transacting business to the nature of education and the definition of the family.
Despite all this change in our environment, there is something that has remained rel-
atively constant. With minor variations and stylistic differences, what have not changed
in several thousand years are the basic skills that lie at the heart of effective, satisfying,
growth-producing human relationships. Freedom, dignity, trust, love, and respect in re-
lationships have always been among the goals of human beings, and the same principles
that brought about those outcomes in the second or seventeenth centuries still bring
them about in the twenty-first century. Despite our circumstances, in other words, and
despite the technological resources we have available to us, the same basic human skills
still lie at the heart of effective human interaction.
This book is built on the presumption that developing management skills—that
is, the skills needed to manage one’s own life as well as relationships with others—is a
ceaseless endeavor. These skills were largely the same a century ago as they are today.
The basic behavioral principles that lie at the foundation of these skills are timeless. This
is one reason why the shelves of bookstores. blogs, and on-line newsletters are filled with
IntroductIon 3
prescriptions of how one more executive or one more company struck it rich or beat out
the competition. Thousands of books trumpet prescriptions for how to be successful in
business, or in life. Many of these books have made it to the best-seller lists and have
enjoyed lengthy stays.
Our intention in this book is not to try to duplicate the popular appeal of the best-
selling books nor to utilize the common formula of recounting anecdotal incidents of suc-
cessful organizations or well-known managers. We have produced a book that remains
true to, and is based on, social science and business research. We want to share with you
what is known and what is not known about how to develop management skills and
how to foster productive, healthy, satisfying, and growth-producing relationships with
others in your work setting. Developing Management Skills is designed to help you actu-
ally improve your personal management competencies—to change your behavior.
This book, therefore, serves more as a practicum or a guide to effective managerial
behavior than a description of what someone else has done to successfully manage an
organization. It will surely help you think, and it will provide examples of success, but
it will have failed if it also does not help you behave more competently in your own life.
Whereas the skills focused on in this book are called “management skills,” their
relevance is not limited just to an organization or work setting. This book could be
retitled “life skills,” or even “leadership skills.” We focus mainly on work settings here
because our primary goal is to help you prepare for and improve your own competency
in a managerial role. You will discover, however, that these skills are applicable in most
areas of your life—with families, friends, volunteer organizations, and your community.
In the next section, we review some of the scientific evidence that demonstrates
how management skills are associated with personal and organizational success, and we
review several studies of the key management skills that seem to be the most important
in our modern-day environment. It is those key skills that this book has targeted. We
then describe a model and a methodology for helping you to develop management skills.
A large number of fads abound proclaiming a new way to be a leader, get rich, or
both, but our intent is to rely on a proven methodology that has grounding in the scien-
tific literature. We present what has been shown to be a superior process for improving
management skills, and we base our claims on scholarly evidence. This Introduction
concludes with a brief description of the organization of the rest of the book and
the importance of keeping in mind individual differences among people.
The Importance of Competent Managers

In the last couple of decades, an abundance of evidence has been produced demonstrating
that skillful management is the single most powerful determinant of organizational success.
These studies have been conducted across numerous industry sectors, international settings,
and organization types. The research findings now make it almost unquestionable that if
organizations want to succeed, they must have competent, skillful managers.
For example, in one study of 968 firms, representing all major industries in the
United States, organizations whose managers effectively managed their people—that is,
they implemented effective people management strategies and demonstrated personal
competency in management skills—had, on the average, a decrease in turnover of more
than 7 percent, increased profits of $3,814 per employee, $27,044 more in sales per
employee, and $18,641 more in stock market value per employee, compared to firms
that had less effective people management (Huselid, 1995; Pfeffer & Veiga, 1999). In a
follow-up study of 702 firms, shareholder wealth was an amazing $41,000 per employee
higher in companies demonstrating strong people management skills than in firms that
had a lower emphasis on people management (Huselid & Becker, 1997).
4 IntroductIon
A study of German firms in 10 industrial sectors produced similar results:
“Companies that place workers at the core of their strategies produce higher long-term
returns . . . than their industry peers” (Blimes, Wetzker, & Xhonneux, 1997). A study
of five-year survivability in 136 nonfinancial companies that issued IPOs in the late
1980s found that the effective management of people was the most significant factor
in predicting longevity, even when accounting for industry type, size, and profits. Firms
that did a good job of managing people tended to survive; others did not (Welbourne &
Andrews, 1996).
A study by Hanson (1986) investigated the factors that best accounted for financial
success over a five-year span in 40 major manufacturing firms. The five most power-
ful predictors were identified and assessed. They included market share (assuming that
the higher the market share of a firm, the higher its profitability); firm capital intensity
(assuming that the more a firm is automated and up-to-date in technology and equipment,
the more profitable it is); size of the firm in assets (assuming that economies of scale and
efficiency can be used in large firms to increase profitability); industry average return on
sales (assuming that firms would reflect the performance of a highly profitable industry);
and the ability of managers to effectively manage their people (assuming that an emphasis
on good people management helps produce profitability in firms). The results revealed that
one factor—the ability to manage people effectively—was three times more powerful than
all other factors combined in accounting for firm financial success over a five-year period!
We repeat, good management was more important than all other factors taken together in
predicting profitability.
This is just a small sampling of studies that indicate overwhelmingly that good
management fosters financial success, whereas less effective management fosters financial
distress. Successful organizations have managers with well-developed management skills.
Moreover, the data are clear that management skills are more important in accounting for
success than industry, environment, competition, and economic factors combined.
The Skills of Effective Managers

What, then, differentiates effective managers from less effective managers? If develop-
ing management skills is so crucial for organizational success, what skills ought to be
the focus of our attention? The management literature is filled with lists of attributes,
behaviors, orientations, and strategies for enhancing successful performance. In writing
this book, we wanted to identify the skills and competencies that separate extraordinarily
effective performers from the rest of us. So, in addition to reviewing the managerial and
leadership literatures, we also identified 402 individuals who were rated as highly effec-
tive managers in their own organizations in the fields of business, health care, education,
and state government by asking senior officers to name the most effective managers in
their organizations. We then interviewed those people to determine what attributes were
associated with managerial effectiveness. We asked questions such as:
❏ How have you become so successful in this organization?
❏ Who fails and who succeeds in this organization and why?
❏ If you had to train someone to take your place, what knowledge and what skills
would you make certain that person possessed in order to perform successfully as
your successor?
❏ If you could design an ideal curriculum or training program to teach you to be a
better manager, what would it contain?
❏ Think of other effective managers you know. What skills do they demonstrate that
explain their success?
IntroductIon 5
Table 1 Skills of Effective Managers—One Study
1. verbal communication (including listening)
2. managing time and stress
3. rational and creative decision making
4. recognizing, defining, and solving problems
5. motivating and influencing others
6. delegating and engaging others
7. Setting goals and articulating a vision
8. Self-awareness
9. team building
10. managing conflict
Our analysis of the interviews produced about 60 characteristics of effective manag-

ers. The 10 identified most often are listed in Table 1. Not surprisingly, these 10 charac-
teristics are all behavioral skills. They are not personality attributes or styles, nor are they
generalizations such as “luck,” “charisma,” or “timing.” They also are common across
industries, levels, and job responsibilities. The characteristics of effective managers are
not a secret.
What Are Management Skills?

There are several defining characteristics of management skills that differentiate them
from other kinds of characteristics and practices. First, management skills are behavioral.
They are not personality attributes or stylistic tendencies. Management skills consist of
actions that lead to positive outcomes. Skills can be observed by others, unlike attributes
that are purely mental, stylistic, or are embedded in personality.
Second, management skills are controllable. The performance of these behaviors is
under your own control. Skills may involve other people and require cognitive work, but
they are behaviors that you can govern yourself.
Third, management skills are developable. Performance can improve. Unlike IQ or
certain personality or temperament attributes that remain relatively constant throughout
life, you can improve your competency in skill performance through practice and feed-
back. You can progress from less competence to more competence in management skills,
and that outcome is the primary objective of this book.
Fourth, management skills are interrelated and overlapping. It is difficult to demon-
strate just one skill in isolation from others. Skills are not simplistic, repetitive behaviors,
but they are integrated sets of complex responses. Fifth, management skills are some-
times contradictory or paradoxical. For example, the core management skills are neither
all soft and humanistic in orientation nor all hard-driving and directive. They are oriented
neither toward teamwork and interpersonal relations exclusively nor toward individual-
ism and technical entrepreneurship exclusively. A variety of skills are typical of the most
effective managers, and some of them appear incompatible.
To illustrate, Cameron and Tschirhart (1988) assessed the skill performance of more
than 500 midlevel and upper-middle managers in about 150 organizations. The most
frequently mentioned 25 management skills taken from about a dozen studies in the aca-
demic literature (such as those in Table 2) were measured. Statistical analyses revealed
6 IntroductIon
that the skills fell into four main groups or clusters. One group of skills focused on par-
ticipative and human relations skills (for example, supportive communication and team
building), while another group focused on just the opposite, that is, competitiveness and
control (for example, assertiveness, power, and influence skills). A third group focused on
innovativeness and individual entrepreneurship (for example, creative problem solving),
while a fourth group emphasized the opposite type of skills, namely, maintaining order
and rationality (for example, managing time and rational decision making). One conclu-
sion from that study was that effective managers are required to demonstrate paradoxical
skills. That is, the most effective managers are both participative and hard-driving, both
nurturing and competitive. They were able to be flexible and creative while also being
controlled, stable, and rational (see Cameron, Quinn, DeGraff, & Thakor, 2014). Our
objective in this book is to help you develop that kind of behavioral competency and
complexity.
Improving Management Skills

It is a bit unnerving that while average IQ scores have increased in the population over
the last half-century, social and emotional intelligence scores have actually declined. In
the population in general, people are less skilled at managing themselves and managing
others than they were 50 years ago (Goleman, 1998). While average IQ scores have
jumped approximately 25 points, emotional intelligence scores (EQ) have fallen. In a
recent survey of 110 Fortune 500 CEOs, 87 percent were satisfied with the level of
competence and analytic skills of business school graduates, 68 percent were satisfied
with conceptual skills of graduates, but only 43 percent of the CEOs were satisfied with
graduates’ management skills, and only 28 percent were satisfied with their interpersonal
skills and EQ!
The good news is that improvement in developing management skills has been
found in both students and managers who have been exposed to in the learning model
presented in Developing Management Skills. For example, MBA students showed
improvement of from 50 to 300 percent on social skills over two years by enrolling
in courses based on the approach to developing management skills presented here.
A greater amount of improvement occurred among students who applied these skills
to aspects of their lives outside the classroom. In addition, a cohort of 45- to 55-year-
old executives produced the same results as the MBA students. They also improved
dramatically in their management skills even though most were already experienced
in senior managerial positions (Boyatzis, 1996, 2000, 2005; Boyatzis, Cowen, &
Kolb, 1995; Boyatzis, Leonard, Rhee, & Wheeler, 1996; Leonard, 1996; Rhee, 1997;
Wheeler, 1999).
An Approach to Skill Development

The method that has been found to be most successful in helping individuals develop
management skills is based on social learning theory (Bandura, 1977; Boyatzis et al.,
1995; Davis & Luthans, 1980). This approach marries rigorous conceptual knowledge
with opportunities to practice and apply observable behaviors. It relies on cognitive work
as well as behavioral work. This learning model, as originally formulated, consisted of
four steps: (1) the presentation of behavioral principles or action guidelines, generally us-
ing traditional instruction methods such as lecture and discussion; (2) demonstration of
the principles by means of cases, films, scripts, or incidents; (3) opportunities to practice
the principles through role plays or exercises; and (4) feedback on performance from
peers, instructors, or experts.
IntroductIon 7
Our own experience in teaching complex management skills, as well as research
on management skills development among MBA students (e.g., Boyatzis et al., 1995;
Vance, 1993) has demonstrated that three important modifications are necessary in order
for this model to be most effective. First, the behavioral principles must be grounded in
social science theory and in reliable research results. To ensure the validity of the behav-
ioral guidelines being prescribed, the learning approach must include scientifically based
knowledge about the effects of the management principles being presented.
Second, you must be aware of your current level of skill competency and be mo-
tivated to improve upon that level. Most of us receive very little feedback about our
current level of skill competency. Most organizations provide some kind of annual or
semiannual evaluation (for example, course grades in school or performance appraisal in-
terviews in firms), but these evaluations are usually infrequent and narrow in scope, and
they fail to assess performance in most critical skill areas. To help you understand what
skills to improve and why, an assessment activity must be part of the model.
In addition, most people find change uncomfortable and therefore avoid taking the
risk to develop new behavior patterns. An assessment activity in the learning model helps
encourage you to change by illuminating your strengths and weaknesses. This makes it
possible to target your improvement efforts more specifically. Assessment activities gen-
erally take the form of self-evaluation instruments, case studies, or problems that help
highlight personal strengths and weaknesses in a particular skill area.
Third, an application component is needed in the learning model. Most manage-
ment skill training takes place in a classroom setting where feedback is immediate, and
it is relatively safe to try out new behaviors and make mistakes. Therefore, transferring
learning to an actual job setting is often problematic. Application exercises help to apply
classroom learning to examples from the real world of management. Application exer-
cises often take the form of an outside-of-class intervention, a consulting assignment,
self-analysis through journal writing, or a problem-centered intervention, which you can
analyze to determine its degree of success or failure.
In summary, evidence suggests that a five-step learning model is most effective for
helping you develop management skills (see Cameron & Whetten, 1984; Kolb, 1984;
Vance, 1993; Whetten & Cameron, 1983). Table 2 outlines such a model. Step 1 involves
the assessment of current levels of skill competency and knowledge of the behavioral
Table 2 A Model for Developing Management Skills
Components Contents objeCtives

1. Skill assessment Survey instruments assess current level of skill competence and
role plays knowledge; create readiness to change.
2. Skill learning written text teach correct principles and present a rationale
Behavioral guidelines for behavioral guidelines.
3. Skill analysis cases provide examples of appropriate and inappropriate
skill performance. analyze behavioral principles and
reasons they work.
4. Skill practice exercises practice behavioral guidelines. adapt principles to
Simulations personal style. receive feedback and assistance.
role plays
5. Skill application assignments (behavioral and transfer classroom learning to real-life situations.
written) foster ongoing personal development.
8 IntroductIon
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DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI
Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely
valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace
of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several
missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its
former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A
thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn
crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the
agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe
fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier
imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller,
without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under
the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who,
as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of
course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.
FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER”
(Sarcopsylla penetrans)
The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing,
but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not
only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are
nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built
against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of
which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not
long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect
to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very
particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can
attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature,
from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a
man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable
of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the
state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on
the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of
pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for
the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his
Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen
all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise
raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of
Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous
consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of
this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,
or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg
ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of
Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there
develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is
stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by
an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so
far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the
toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature
penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it
may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.
Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which
we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much
easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a
European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely
shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I
constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were
taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I
thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive
sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill
the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of
the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all
the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of
prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?
The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are
really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to
smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from
the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most
distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other
narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both
“off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we
recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were
once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the
craving for tobacco in the tropics.
Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken
seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which
have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early
afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and
making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to
an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work
progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole
body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on
my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun
is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness
and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to
establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have
ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the
circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do
so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with
my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are
abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes
later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and
lemon-juice.
Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make
them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring
heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might
mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my
great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This
is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment,
that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an
hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the
wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.
Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state
of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever
should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a
kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and
more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly
follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at
least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my
work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.
My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which
makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in
the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy
from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari;
consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant
post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began
by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had
bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when
they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered
the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to
entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was
consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a
jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding,
consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening
meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned
vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission
entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his
own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us,
seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of
food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls
when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins
left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I
am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten
years to come.
Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the
genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch:
Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9
× 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.
How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a
ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for
taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated
mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but
he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light
contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the
above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his
ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion
to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough
cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an
extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most
conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog
did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by
finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few
days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he
mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his
mutilated finger-tips.
Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all
directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old
habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal
elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had
promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only
from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.
The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off
at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is
about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the
Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area
is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface,
however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western
edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the
eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering
any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which
here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is
inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other
primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and
manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day
such a fire is a grand sight.
Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the
great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as
time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to
let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.
Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush,
and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more
favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to
the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use
taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea
of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to
make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of
the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction
through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are
everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of
yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these
beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their
upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the
western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of
deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine
to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.
It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the
short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at
the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves
bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki
suits had not escaped scatheless.
NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.
MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe
Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original
one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is
only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from
one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just
large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a
large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing
with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into
which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The
door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat
curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs
corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust
through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular
opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]
MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY
With no small pride first one householder and then a second

showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the
Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of
“Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these
marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows
the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at
Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two
heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same
time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if
the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken
their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them
to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have
two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise,
come in for a blowing-up.
The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially
miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the
temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here
have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to
congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even
the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala,
shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country
are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident
danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only
attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief
Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with
partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular
grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks
the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.
Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something
of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted
solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde
bush:—
“We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have
no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the
Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great
master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”
With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here
on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other
conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is
impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any
given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even
an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination,
might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples
collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central
African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian
Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are
only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech,
and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and
structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking
differences in outward appearance.
Even did such exist, I should have no time
to concern myself with them, for day after day,
I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in
any case to grasp and record—an
extraordinary number of ethnographic
phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it
fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at
least, are barred by external circumstances.
Chief among these is the subject of iron-
working. We are apt to think of Africa as a
country where iron ore is everywhere, so to
speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and
where it would be quite surprising if the
inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the
material ready to their hand. In fact, the
knowledge of this art ranges all over the
continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the
Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma
and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so
favourable. According to the statements of the
Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other
form of iron ore is known to them. They have
not therefore advanced to the art of smelting
the metal, but have hitherto bought all their
THE ANCESTRESS OF
THE MAKONDE
iron implements from neighbouring tribes.
Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much
better off. Only one man now living is said to
understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to
Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of
the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose
jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While
still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that,
frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though
he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the
fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado”
(“Not yet”).
BRAZIER
Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite
of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering
brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings
which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give
me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he
had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three
crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite
willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on
the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four
legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to
admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower
end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is
stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from
the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an
earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent
piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross
on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow
material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are
only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation
the smith’s two hands move up and down with the open ends of the
bellows; as he raises his hand he holds the slit wide open, so as to let
the air enter the skin bag unhindered. In pressing it down he closes
the bag, and the air puffs through the bamboo tube and clay pipe into
the fire, which quickly burns up. The smith, however, does not keep
on with this work, but beckons to another man, who relieves him at
the bellows, while he takes some more tools out of a large skin pouch
carried on his back. I look on in wonder as, with a smooth round
stick about the thickness of a finger, he bores a few vertical holes into
the clean sand of the soil. This should not be difficult, yet the man
seems to be taking great pains over it. Then he fastens down to the
ground, with a couple of wooden clamps, a neat little trough made by
splitting a joint of bamboo in half, so that the ends are closed by the
two knots. At last the yellow metal has attained the right consistency,
and the fundi lifts the crucible from the fire by means of two sticks
split at the end to serve as tongs. A short swift turn to the left—a
tilting of the crucible—and the molten brass, hissing and giving forth
clouds of smoke, flows first into the bamboo mould and then into the
holes in the ground.
The technique of this backwoods craftsman may not be very far
advanced, but it cannot be denied that he knows how to obtain an
adequate result by the simplest means. The ladies of highest rank in
this country—that is to say, those who can afford it, wear two kinds
of these massive brass rings, one cylindrical, the other semicircular
in section. The latter are cast in the most ingenious way in the
bamboo mould, the former in the circular hole in the sand. It is quite
a simple matter for the fundi to fit these bars to the limbs of his fair
customers; with a few light strokes of his hammer he bends the
pliable brass round arm or ankle without further inconvenience to
the wearer.
SHAPING THE POT
SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB
CUTTING THE EDGE

FINISHING THE BOTTOM
LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING
FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE
TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL
NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

Pottery is an art which must always and everywhere excite the
interest of the student, just because it is so intimately connected with
the development of human culture, and because its relics are one of
the principal factors in the reconstruction of our own condition in
prehistoric times. I shall always remember with pleasure the two or
three afternoons at Masasi when Salim Matola’s mother, a slightly-
built, graceful, pleasant-looking woman, explained to me with
touching patience, by means of concrete illustrations, the ceramic art
of her people. The only implements for this primitive process were a
lump of clay in her left hand, and in the right a calabash containing
the following valuables: the fragment of a maize-cob stripped of all
its grains, a smooth, oval pebble, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, a
few chips of gourd-shell, a bamboo splinter about the length of one’s
hand, a small shell, and a bunch of some herb resembling spinach.
Nothing more. The woman scraped with the
shell a round, shallow hole in the soft, fine
sand of the soil, and, when an active young
girl had filled the calabash with water for her,
she began to knead the clay. As if by magic it
gradually assumed the shape of a rough but
already well-shaped vessel, which only wanted
a little touching up with the instruments
before mentioned. I looked out with the
MAKUA WOMAN closest attention for any indication of the use
MAKING A POT. of the potter’s wheel, in however rudimentary
SHOWS THE a form, but no—hapana (there is none). The
BEGINNINGS OF THE embryo pot stood firmly in its little
POTTER’S WHEEL
depression, and the woman walked round it in
a stooping posture, whether she was removing
small stones or similar foreign bodies with the maize-cob, smoothing
the inner or outer surface with the splinter of bamboo, or later, after
letting it dry for a day, pricking in the ornamentation with a pointed
bit of gourd-shell, or working out the bottom, or cutting the edge
with a sharp bamboo knife, or giving the last touches to the finished
vessel. This occupation of the women is infinitely toilsome, but it is
without doubt an accurate reproduction of the process in use among
our ancestors of the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
There is no doubt that the invention of pottery, an item in human
progress whose importance cannot be over-estimated, is due to
women. Rough, coarse and unfeeling, the men of the horde range
over the countryside. When the united cunning of the hunters has
succeeded in killing the game; not one of them thinks of carrying
home the spoil. A bright fire, kindled by a vigorous wielding of the
drill, is crackling beside them; the animal has been cleaned and cut
up secundum artem, and, after a slight singeing, will soon disappear
under their sharp teeth; no one all this time giving a single thought
to wife or child.
To what shifts, on the other hand, the primitive wife, and still more
the primitive mother, was put! Not even prehistoric stomachs could
endure an unvarying diet of raw food. Something or other suggested
the beneficial effect of hot water on the majority of approved but
indigestible dishes. Perhaps a neighbour had tried holding the hard
roots or tubers over the fire in a calabash filled with water—or maybe
an ostrich-egg-shell, or a hastily improvised vessel of bark. They
became much softer and more palatable than they had previously
been; but, unfortunately, the vessel could not stand the fire and got
charred on the outside. That can be remedied, thought our
ancestress, and plastered a layer of wet clay round a similar vessel.
This is an improvement; the cooking utensil remains uninjured, but
the heat of the fire has shrunk it, so that it is loose in its shell. The
next step is to detach it, so, with a firm grip and a jerk, shell and
kernel are separated, and pottery is invented. Perhaps, however, the
discovery which led to an intelligent use of the burnt-clay shell, was
made in a slightly different way. Ostrich-eggs and calabashes are not
to be found in every part of the world, but everywhere mankind has
arrived at the art of making baskets out of pliant materials, such as
bark, bast, strips of palm-leaf, supple twigs, etc. Our inventor has no
water-tight vessel provided by nature. “Never mind, let us line the
basket with clay.” This answers the purpose, but alas! the basket gets
burnt over the blazing fire, the woman watches the process of
cooking with increasing uneasiness, fearing a leak, but no leak
appears. The food, done to a turn, is eaten with peculiar relish; and
the cooking-vessel is examined, half in curiosity, half in satisfaction
at the result. The plastic clay is now hard as stone, and at the same
time looks exceedingly well, for the neat plaiting of the burnt basket
is traced all over it in a pretty pattern. Thus, simultaneously with
pottery, its ornamentation was invented.
Primitive woman has another claim to respect. It was the man,
roving abroad, who invented the art of producing fire at will, but the
woman, unable to imitate him in this, has been a Vestal from the
earliest times. Nothing gives so much trouble as the keeping alight of
the smouldering brand, and, above all, when all the men are absent
from the camp. Heavy rain-clouds gather, already the first large
drops are falling, the first gusts of the storm rage over the plain. The
little flame, a greater anxiety to the woman than her own children,
flickers unsteadily in the blast. What is to be done? A sudden thought
occurs to her, and in an instant she has constructed a primitive hut
out of strips of bark, to protect the flame against rain and wind.
This, or something very like it, was the way in which the principle
of the house was discovered; and even the most hardened misogynist
cannot fairly refuse a woman the credit of it. The protection of the
hearth-fire from the weather is the germ from which the human
dwelling was evolved. Men had little, if any share, in this forward
step, and that only at a late stage. Even at the present day, the
plastering of the housewall with clay and the manufacture of pottery
are exclusively the women’s business. These are two very significant
survivals. Our European kitchen-garden, too, is originally a woman’s
invention, and the hoe, the primitive instrument of agriculture, is,
characteristically enough, still used in this department. But the
noblest achievement which we owe to the other sex is unquestionably
the art of cookery. Roasting alone—the oldest process—is one for
which men took the hint (a very obvious one) from nature. It must
have been suggested by the scorched carcase of some animal
overtaken by the destructive forest-fires. But boiling—the process of
improving organic substances by the help of water heated to boiling-
point—is a much later discovery. It is so recent that it has not even
yet penetrated to all parts of the world. The Polynesians understand
how to steam food, that is, to cook it, neatly wrapped in leaves, in a
hole in the earth between hot stones, the air being excluded, and
(sometimes) a few drops of water sprinkled on the stones; but they
do not understand boiling.
To come back from this digression, we find that the slender Nyasa
woman has, after once more carefully examining the finished pot,
put it aside in the shade to dry. On the following day she sends me
word by her son, Salim Matola, who is always on hand, that she is
going to do the burning, and, on coming out of my house, I find her
already hard at work. She has spread on the ground a layer of very
dry sticks, about as thick as one’s thumb, has laid the pot (now of a
yellowish-grey colour) on them, and is piling brushwood round it.
My faithful Pesa mbili, the mnyampara, who has been standing by,
most obligingly, with a lighted stick, now hands it to her. Both of
them, blowing steadily, light the pile on the lee side, and, when the
flame begins to catch, on the weather side also. Soon the whole is in a
blaze, but the dry fuel is quickly consumed and the fire dies down, so
that we see the red-hot vessel rising from the ashes. The woman
turns it continually with a long stick, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, so that it may be evenly heated all over. In
twenty minutes she rolls it out of the ash-heap, takes up the bundle
of spinach, which has been lying for two days in a jar of water, and
sprinkles the red-hot clay with it. The places where the drops fall are
marked by black spots on the uniform reddish-brown surface. With a
sigh of relief, and with visible satisfaction, the woman rises to an
erect position; she is standing just in a line between me and the fire,
from which a cloud of smoke is just rising: I press the ball of my
camera, the shutter clicks—the apotheosis is achieved! Like a
priestess, representative of her inventive sex, the graceful woman
stands: at her feet the hearth-fire she has given us beside her the
invention she has devised for us, in the background the home she has
built for us.
At Newala, also, I have had the manufacture of pottery carried on
in my presence. Technically the process is better than that already
described, for here we find the beginnings of the potter’s wheel,
which does not seem to exist in the plains; at least I have seen
nothing of the sort. The artist, a frightfully stupid Makua woman, did
not make a depression in the ground to receive the pot she was about
to shape, but used instead a large potsherd. Otherwise, she went to
work in much the same way as Salim’s mother, except that she saved
herself the trouble of walking round and round her work by squatting
at her ease and letting the pot and potsherd rotate round her; this is
surely the first step towards a machine. But it does not follow that
the pot was improved by the process. It is true that it was beautifully
rounded and presented a very creditable appearance when finished,
but the numerous large and small vessels which I have seen, and, in
part, collected, in the “less advanced” districts, are no less so. We
moderns imagine that instruments of precision are necessary to
produce excellent results. Go to the prehistoric collections of our
museums and look at the pots, urns and bowls of our ancestors in the
dim ages of the past, and you will at once perceive your error.
MAKING LONGITUDINAL CUT IN
BARK
DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG
REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

BEATING THE BARK
WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT
MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is
clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in
some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear,
and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake
Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been
superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such
bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the
south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab
material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in
the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where
it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits
which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at
Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of
bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the
process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the
purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and
as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped
mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and
boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu!
[51]
Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has
drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and
slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife.
With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the
log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark
shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With
some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end,
and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free
edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily
pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of
scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of
the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully
scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having
signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside
him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet,
lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and
hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to
myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my
opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is
not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the
stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several
thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required
state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both
ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he
holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine
and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is
quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the
simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some
hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and
across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck
into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is
shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious
network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The
observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in
connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here
finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn
during the unyago,[52] having been prepared with special solemn
ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy,
will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all,
looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African
surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.
MAKUA WOMEN

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(eBook PDF) Developing Management

Skills 9th Edition

PArt I Personal skIlls 35

PArt II InterPersonal skIlls 187

PArt III GrouP skIlls 363

PArt IV sPeCIfIC CoMMunICatIon skIlls 487

the critical role of management skills 3

scoring keY anD comParison Data 32

PArt I Personal skIlls 35

scoring keYs anD comParison Data 79

skill analYsis 114

skill Practice 121

skill aPPlication 128

scoring keYs anD comParison Data 130

skill assessment 134

skill learning 139

skill analYsis 172

skill Practice 175

skill aPPlication 182

PArt II InterPersonal skIlls 187

4 BuildiNg rElAtioNShipS By coMMuNicAtiNg SupportivEly 189

skill assessment 190

skill learning 190

skill analYsis 216

skill Practice 219

scoring keYs anD comParison Data 226

5 gAiNiNg powEr ANd iNfluENcE 227

skill assessment 228

skill learning 228

skill analYsis 253

skill Practice 254

skill aPPlication 259

scoring keYs anD comParison Data 261

6 MotivAtiNg othErS 263

skill assessment 264

skill learning 264

skill analYsis 289

skill Practice 295

skill aPPlication 301

scoring keYs anD comParison Data 304

7 MANAgiNg coNflict 305

skill assessment 306

skill learning 306

skill analYsis 332

skill aPPlication 358

scoring keYs anD comParison Data 362

PArt III GrouP skIlls 363

8 EMpowEriNg ANd ENgAgiNg othErS 365

skill assessment 366

skill learning 366

skill analYsis 389

skill Practice 391

skill aPPlication 397

scoring keYs anD comParison Data 399

9 BuildiNg EffEctivE tEAMS ANd tEAMwork 401

skill assessment 402

skill learning 403

skill Practice 432

skill aPPlication 439

scoring keYs anD comParison Data 440

10 lEAdiNg poSitivE chANgE 443

skill assessment 444